Monthly Archives: March 2014

Arny and Cil Spahn have long background in photography

As they prepare to hang their exhibit in the Gifford Medical Center gallery, Arnold and Priscilla Spahn hold up photos they took in the Southwest. Priscilla’s photo is of a Navajo weaver in Gouldings, Utah. Arny holds a photo of what is known as “the left mitten” in Monument Valley, Utah.

Randolph couple Arnold “Arny” and Priscilla “Cil” Spahn present images of their travels to the Southwest in a joint photography exhibit at Gifford Medical Center March 26 through April 30.

The Spahns have been taking photographs since they were very young; Cil since she was 7 and Arny since age 9.

Born in Providence, R.I., Arny joined the U.S. Air Force at age 18 and then went on to work in Danbury, Conn., building high voltage test equipment. It was there that his talents in photography were recognized, and Arny became the company photographer and also technical writer.

Cil was raised in Connecticut and as a teenager won a number of awards for her photography. When the photography teacher at her high school became ill, Cil was asked to step in. At age 16, she did black and white photofinishing at a local camera shop and took photographs to accompany an article submitted to a national architectural magazine. She says she often wondered if the magazine editors knew the photographer was a teen.
In college at Skidmore, she both photographed and wrote for the school paper, moving up to managing editor her senior year.

Cil and Arny met volunteering as “flaggers,” or safety workers, at race tracks with the New England Region Sports Car Club of America. Cil was one of the first women course workers at tracks in Lime Rock, Conn., and Sebring, Fla.

A photography course in South Woodstock at the Doscher Country School of Photography paid for courtesy of Arny’s GI Bill of Rights first brought the couple to Vermont in 1971. Inspired by the course and the Green Mountain State, they settled in Vermont and opened a photography business first in Brookfield and then in Randolph, Bridge Hill Studio, running it together until retiring in 1997.

As part of their business, they rejoined the sports car racing world as licensed freelance photographers, taking and selling thousands of action photographs to racers and publications. They are also both past presidents of the Vermont and New England Professional Photographers Association and were both trustees of the New England Institute of Professional Photography.

Today, they are active in their community as board members of the Randolph Rotary, The Clara Martin Center and The Citizens Advisory Board for Reparative Justice.

A hobbyist woodworker, or wood turner, Arny continues to write and photograph for The Woodchuck Woodturners of Northern Vermont as their newsletter editor.

The couple also enjoys traveling, specifically Elderhostel or Road Scholar educational tours. They have been taking the tours since they retired almost two decades ago. A recent trip took them to Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, where they visited scenes from Tony Hillerman’s fictional stories of Navajo people. Those scenes from the Southwest make up their exhibit at Gifford.

“What we fell in love with about the Hillerman Country was the Navajo’s basic desire to be in harmony with their world. It’s a concept they call ‘hozho,’ and in their prayers, they ask only to walk in beauty. When you travel through much of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, physical beauty is all around you,” notes the couple in a write-up on its trip, displayed as part of the exhibit.

The exhibit is free and open to the public. The Gifford gallery is located just inside the hospital’s main entrance at 44 S. Main St. (Route 12) in Randolph. Call Gifford at (802) 728-7000 or Volunteer Coordinator Julie Fischer at (802) 728-2324 for more information.

Blue Jeans for Babies

Gifford Medical Center employees raised $520 for the March of Dimes by wearing “Blue Jeans for Babies” on Friday.

The Randolph medical center and its outlying health clinics participate each year in March in the fund-raiser, which allows employees who donate $5 to the March of Dimes to wear jeans to work for the day.

This year more than 100 employees participated.

The March of Dimes is the nation’s leading non-profit organization for pregnancy and baby health. It raises funds through a variety of events to help prevent birth defects, premature births and infant mortality.

Roger Clapp, March of Dimes Vermont Chapter director, thanked hospital employees for their participation in the fund-raiser and – as a medical center with a renowned Birthing Center – for their work toward healthy births. “The March of Dimes recognizes the care and commitment to excellence among the Gifford Medical Center team that contributes to Vermont’s national lead in healthy birth outcomes. We’re particularly thankful to be able to reinvest the staff’s fund-raising proceeds to give every baby in Vermont a healthier start,” Clapp said.

“Gifford is pleased to be able to partner with the March of Dimes on initiatives to support prenatal and infant health,” said Robin Palmer, a member of Gifford’s Marketing Department who organizes the hospital’s effort. “Employees are truly excited to both support a cause close to our hearts and wear jeans to work. It’s something we look forward to all year.”

Other businesses wishing to wear “Blue Jeans for Babies” can contact the March of Dimes here in Vermont at (802) 560-3239.

Gifford is also a sponsor of the central Vermont March for Babies walk upcoming on May 4 at Montpelier High School. Sign-up online at www.marchfordimes.com/vermont or by calling.

Cindy Legacy poses with Gifford registered dietitian Stacy Pelletier. Legacy of Randolph lost 110 pounds and is now starting a weight loss support group at Gifford to help maintain her own weight loss and help others on their journey to becoming healthy.

After losing 110 pounds, Cindy Legacy of Randolph is launching a weight loss support group at her workplace – Gifford Medical Center – to help keep the weight off and help others on their weight loss journeys.

The first meeting, which is free and open to all, will be Wednesday, April 9 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Gifford Conference Center.

Legacy has some goals for the group, including providing educational resources, occasional speakers, discussion, support, walking and activities. There won’t be weigh-ins, or judgment, however.

“I don’t care what you weigh. It’s none of my business,” says Legacy, who rather wants to help anyone, at any stage in his or her effort to lose weight and have a healthier lifestyle.

But she is also interested in finding what participants want and what meeting times work best. That will be part of the first meeting. She’s envisioning weekly, evening meetings to follow.

Joseph Woodin, Gifford’s administrator, speaks at Saturday’s Annual Meeting of the medical center’s corporators. Woodin outlined a year of success.

If there was any doubt that Randolph’s local hospital – Gifford – stands above when it comes to commitment to community and financial stability, it was wholly erased Saturday as the medical center held its 108th Annual Meeting of its corporators.

The evening gathering at Gifford featured an overview of the hospital’s successful past year, news of spectacular community outreach efforts, a video detailing employees’ commitment to caring for their neighbors and a ringing endorsement from Al Gobeille, chairman of the Green Mountain Care Board and the evening’s guest speaker.

For Gifford, 2013 brought a 14th consecutive year “making” budget and operating margin, new providers, expanded services including urology and wound care, expanded facilities in Sharon and Randolph, a designation as a Federally Qualified Health Center and all permits needed to move forward on the construction of a senior living community in Randolph Center and private inpatient rooms at Gifford.

The Randolph medical center also collected a ranking as the state’s most energy efficient hospital, an award for pediatrician Dr. Lou DiNicola, national recognition for Outstanding Senior Volunteer Major Melvin McLaughlin of Randolph and, noted Board Chairman Gus Meyer, continued national accolades for the Menig Extended Care Facility nursing home.

“In the meantime, we’re faced with an ever-changing health care landscape,” said Meyer, listing accountable care organizations, payment reform initiatives and a burgeoning number of small hospitals forming relationships with the region’s two large tertiary care centers.

For some small hospitals, these shifts cause “angst.” “We like to think it brings us possibility,” said Meyer. “As both a Critical Access Hospital and now a Federally Qualified Health Center, Gifford is particularly well positioned to sustain our health as an organization and continue to fulfill our vital role in enhancing the health of the communities we serve.”

In a major announcement, Woodin shared that thanks to the William and Mary Markle Community Foundation, Gifford will grant a total of $25,000 to schools in 10 area towns to support exercise and healthy eating programs.

Gifford annually at this time of year also hands out a grant and scholarship. The 2014 Philip Levesque grant in the amount of $1,000 was awarded to the Orange County Parent Child Center. The 2014 Richard J. Barrett, M.D., scholarship was awarded to Genia Schumacher, a mother of seven and breast cancer survivor who is in her second year of the radiology program at Champlain College.

The continued use of “Gifford Gift Certificates,” encouraging local spending during the holiday, invested about $40,000 in the regional economy in December. “These small stores appreciate it. It really does make a difference,” noted Woodin, who also detailed Gifford’s buy local approach and many community outreach activities in 2013, including free health fairs and classes.

The community in turn has invested in Gifford. The medical center’s 120 volunteers gave 16,678 hours in 2013, or 2,085 eight-hour workdays. Thrift Shop volunteers gave another 6,489 hours, or 811 workdays. And the Auxiliary, which operates the popular Thrift Shop, has both invested in equipment for various Gifford departments and made a major contribution toward the planned senior living community that will begin construction in May.

Elections

Outgoing Gifford board member David Ainsworth arrives with wife Peggy to Saturday’s 108th Annual Meeting of the Corporators.

The night also brought new members to the Gifford family.

Corporators elected two new of their own: Matt Considine of Randolph and Jody Richards of Bethel. Considine, the director of investments for the State of Vermont, was also elected to the Board of Trustees and Lincoln Clark of Royalton was re-elected.

Leaving the board after six years was Sharon Dimmick of Randolph Center, a past chairwoman, and David Ainsworth of South Royalton after nine years.

‘Recipe for Success’

“Recipe for Success” was the night’s theme and built around a fresh-off-the-press 2013 Annual Report sharing patient accounts of Gifford staff members going above and beyond. The report, now available on www.giffordmed.org, credits employees’ strong commitment to patient-care as helping the medical center succeed.

Taking the message one step further, Gifford unveiled a new video with staff members talking about the privilege of providing local care and the medical center’s diverse services, particularly its emphasis on primary care. The video is also on the hospital’s Web site.

Health care reform
Shifting resources to primary and preventative care is a key to health care reform initiatives, said a personable and humorous Gobeille, who emphasized affordability.

“We all want care. We just have to be able to afford care,” he said. “In the two-and-a-half years I’ve been on the board, I’ve grown an optimism that Vermont could do something profound.”

Gobeille described what he called “two Vermonts” – one where large companies providing their employees more affordable insurance and one where small businesses and individuals struggle to pay high costs. “The Affordable Care Act tries to fix that,” he said.

The role his board is playing in the initiatives in Vermont is one of a regulator over hospital budgets and the certificate of need process, one as innovator of pilot projects aimed at redefining how health care is delivered, and paid for, and as an evaluator of the success of these initiatives as well as the administration and legislators’ efforts to move toward a single-payer system.

Audience members asked questions about when a financing plan for a single-payer system would be forthcoming (after the election, Gobeille said), about how costs can be reduced without personal accountability from individuals for their health (personal accountability absolutely matters, he said) and how small hospitals can keep the doors open.

Gobeille pointed to Gifford’s record of financial success and working for the best interests of patients and communities as keys. “I don’t think Gifford’s future is in peril as long as you have a great management team, and you do,” Gobeille said.

Chiropractor Dr. Michael Chamberland has joined Gifford’s Sharon Health Center, fulfilling a dream to work at a multidisciplinary sports medicine practice.

Originally from Bellows Falls, Dr. Chamberland attended the University of Vermont, studying pre-medicine and nutritional sciences. He went on to Western States Chiropractor College in Portland, Ore., earning his doctor of chiropractic degree.

He credits a back injury with steering him toward chiropractic.

He got hurt playing hockey. Months went by without relief until he visited a chiropractor for the first time in his life. “It was a chiropractic miracle, so to speak,” he says, remembering recovering his full range of motion after his first adjustment and being symptom-free within two weeks. “For me, I just couldn’t believe it. I realized that it was the perfect profession for me.”

After a chiropractic internship at Western States Chiropractic Clinics in Oregon, Dr. Chamberland returned to Vermont. He opened a private practice, Catamount Chiropractic, in Colchester as well as working at Jerome Family Chiropractic in Montpelier and Temple Chiropractic in Bellows Falls.

He maintains his private practice part-time, which shares space with a physical therapy facility, but couldn’t pass up an opportunity to work at the Sharon Health Center. “That was the ideal,” he says of the Sharon sports medicine team that includes podiatry, general sports medicine, physical therapists and an athletic trainer, and fellow chiropractor Dr. Hank Glass. “It (a multidisciplinary sports medicine team) doesn’t exist in Burlington. It generally doesn’t exist on the East Coast.”

The Sharon Health Center is part of Gifford Medical Center. Gifford’s family atmosphere and collaborative, team approach were also attractive, he notes.

Dr. Chamberland is board certified by the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners. His clinical interests include prevention and treatment of sports injuries, sports nutrition, posture assessment, injury risk assessment and advanced imaging.

A resident of Essex, Dr. Chamberland is an athlete in his free time, including playing hockey, kiteboarding, alpine skiing, golf, tennis, cycling, hiking, water skiing and wakeboarding. He worked as an alpine race coach in Vail, Colo., as well as Smugglers’ Notch, for a time. He was even part of a race crew for the 1999 World Alpine Ski Championships in Vail.

Now he is putting his athletic and chiropractic experience to work in Sharon. Call him Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the Sharon Health Center at (802) 763-8000.

Maggie Gardner was studying sociology at the University of Vermont when a nurse-midwife came to speak during a class on reproduction.

Gardner’s first thought: “I want to be her.”

Today, she is.

After graduating from the University of Vermont in 2001, Gardner went to work for that midwife’s home birth practice, Welcoming Home Family Nurse-Midwifery in Hinesburg. Gardner was the office manager and assistant, both clerically and clinically, including assisting at births.

She went on help start a midwifery practice in her hometown of Vergennes, Tapestry Midwifery, and returned to the University of Vermont, undertaking the master’s entry program in nursing and earning her registered nurse certificate. Next was nurse midwifery school at the Frontier Nursing University in Kentucky – a master’s degree program.

And now, Gardner, a Vermont native, is working at one of the state’s most coveted certified nurse-midwifery practices – Gifford Ob/Gyn and Midwifery.

Board certified by the American Midwifery Certification Board and a member of the American College of Nurse Midwives, Gardner is seeing patients at Gifford’s clinics in Randolph and Berlin.

“I’m excited,” says Gardner, calling Gifford’s practice on the top of the pedestal when it comes to midwifery. “It has a strong reputation in the midwifery community.

“Many people don’t get to choose where they work. I get to choose to work at a place that’s committed to midwives.”

Gifford’s practice, she notes, takes the best of the home and hospital birth experience, and combines them into a natural, hospital-based midwifery birth.

Gardner will do the same in her practice at Gifford as well as focusing on open communication, equal partnerships with patients and families, and individualized care.

Gardner cares for all types of patients, from women needing routine gynecologic care to women expecting a baby, but has special interests in breast feeding support, Pap test follow-up, testing for and educating women on risk factors for sexually transmitted infections, and sexual health.

Those interests in part incorporate Gardner’s other work experience. In addition to her midwifery experience, Gardner has worked in pediatrics, emergency medicine, and infectious disease at Fletcher Allen Health Care in primarily office assistant type roles, and most recently was a manager at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, where she was responsible for the implementation of a new centralized lab management system for 21 Planned Parenthood health centers in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Gardner lives in the home in which she grew up in Vergennes. She is married and has two children, a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old.

Originally from Montreal, Dr. Cochrane’s first career was in engineering. Consulting work in the field brought him to the United States and soon he was considering a major career change.

“Medicine was just interesting to me,” he says, noting that his parents were aging and he found himself wanting to be “part of the solution” for them.

He took a few classes, loved it, and decided to fully pursue it.

He attended the pre-medicine post baccalaureate degree program at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and then the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Dr. Cochrane went on to residency at Fletcher Allen Health Care and quickly found himself drawn to intensive care and sicker patients.

“I wanted to really be involved in more acute, sicker people,” says Dr. Cochrane, who went to work as a hospitalist – a doctor caring for hospitalized patients.

Board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and a member of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Cochrane worked for Apogee Physicians Group launching or working at hospitalist programs in medical centers across the state, including Northwest Medical Center, Springfield Hospital, Copley Hospital, and Porter Medical Center, as well as Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone, N.Y.

The work with Apogee, a physician-owned business focused entirely on hospitalist medicine, meant switching jobs every few years, however. Dr. Cochrane of South Burlington was looking for more stability.

“I wanted to be in a community where I could stay for a long period of time and know the community well,” says Dr. Cochrane, who has now found that at Gifford.

Experienced nurse leader Alison White has joined Gifford Medical Center as its vice president of patient care services – a role that oversees the Hospital Division, including inpatient care, the Birthing Center, ob/gyn and midwifery practice, Emergency Department, nursing home and Adult Day Program.

A graduate of the bachelor’s degree nursing program at the University of Vermont and the master’s degree health care administration program at Independence University in Utah, White has spent her career in nursing and then nurse leadership.

Her nursing career focused on cardiac and dialysis patients – populations she loved because of the relationships formed with patients. “They grow to be your family,” she says.

White went on to serve as director of care management at Central Vermont Medical Center (CVMC), the director of regional care management and quality improvement for the Dartmouth Hitchcock Alliance, the director of clinical outcomes at CVMC and most recently vice president of quality, chief nursing officer and patient safety office at the Berlin-based hospital.

A motorcycle accident in August that nearly took her life left White reevaluating her priorities, however. She was seeking a better work/life balance, and says she has found that at Gifford.

“I felt like I hit the jackpot,” says White, who joined Gifford earlier this year. “The people are so open and warm and helpful and genuine, really genuine. Team comes through. It has a feeling of family. It doesn’t have a feeling of ‘corporateness,’ but at the end of the day the job gets done.

“I’m just so grateful to be here. I look forward every day to coming in.”

White succeeds Linda Minsinger, a long-time vice president who has transitioned to a new role: executive director of Gifford’s retirement community that will soon be under construction in Randolph Center and requires substantial planning.

“I think Alison is a great opportunity for Gifford’s Hospital Division. She comes with expanded current knowledge in the health care field and quality. I feel she will provide the staff and leaders with a new and different view of their roles,” says Minsinger, who is equally enthusiastic about her new role, which in part develops not just a community, but a culture “to ensure the residents and staff are happy and enjoy all the activities and opportunities that are offered.”

White lives in Barre with her husband Paul, a Vermont State Police captain. They have two children, Catie, 21, and Jeffrey, 18. White enjoys photography, volunteering at her church, serving on the Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice board and traveling in her free time.

Free health fair and diabetes expo focuses on chronic illness

Gifford chefs Ed Striebe, left, and Steve Morgan present at a past Diabetes Education Expo. The annual, free event is expanded this year to all with chronic illnesses and includes a health fair as well as presentations, including a cooking demonstration by Morgan.

Gifford Medical Center will hold a free Health Fair and Diabetes Education Expo on Friday, March 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Randolph hospital’s Conference Center and visitors’ entrance.

The fair, redesigned from past years, is open to anyone with a chronic condition, not just those with diabetes. It does not require registration, and puts a strong emphasis on “Creating a Healthy Lifestyle” – the fair’s theme.

Gifford has held a Diabetes Education Expo for eight prior years. While the diabetes epidemic remains, organizers from Gifford’s Blueprint for Health team decided to expand the event this year to other conditions because so much of what is being discussed is applicable, explained Jennifer Stratton, Gifford certified diabetes educator.

“Most people who have chronic conditions have something in common,” Stratton said. “I also wanted to open it up to those with pre-diabetes to help prevent diabetes from actually happening.”

The day includes vendor booths and a health fair open throughout the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. event. Vendor booths are located in the hospital’s visitors’ entrance south of the hospital near the Gift Shop. Vendors this year are local community resource agencies and organizations talking about services and help available locally.

Health fair booths are in one of the hospital’s conference rooms and include blood pressure checks, foot checks, glucose monitoring, goal-setting guidance and guidance on healthy lifestyle choices, physical therapy exercises, tobacco cessation help, diabetes education, information on support groups, and more. The booths are operated by experts from Gifford as well as local dentist Dr. John Westbook and local optometrist Dr. Dean Barelow.

Special presentations will also be offered in a second conference room, including a 10-10:45 a.m. talk by Stratton on “Advances in Diabetes Management;” an 11-11:30 a.m. talk on “Using Herbs to Complement Your Diabetes Wellness Plan” by Sylvia Gaboriault, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator; and a 1-1:30 p.m. cooking demonstration on “Sugar ‘Less’ Baking” with Gifford chef Steve Morgan.

Participants may drop in or stay all day. A couple of raffle drawings will be offered and the hospitals’ cafeteria will be open for those wishing to buy lunch.

Learn more by calling Gifford’s Blueprint team at (802) 728-7710. Gifford Medical Center is located at 44 S. Main St. (Route 12) in Randolph. Drive past the hospital, south on Route 12, and take the entrance just after the medical center to access the visitors’ entrance. The Conference Center is marked with a green awning. For handicapped accessibility, go in the main entrance marked “Registration” and take the elevator to the first floor.